Summary
Once they’re in Antoine Milad’s green car, he asks what’s going on. He says he spoke two days earlier to Karim’s parents, who are not dead, but in Montreal. He gives them juice and coffee as they explain. He commiserates over the loss of Maha’s family and offers them a place to sleep before they continue on. When they wake, Antoine discusses the conditions that led to the war. While people talk of pre-war Lebanon as a paradise, or the “Switzerland of the Middle East,” Antoine says it had underlying issues of friction between the rich and poor, the right and left, the cities and the country.
Maha loses interest in the conversation. Antoine offers to let them stay with him, or to figure out a way to send them to Montreal. He shows them photos of a walking trip he and Karim’s father took to Chlifa in 1965. With the photos he discovers maps and journals. Antoine realizes he knows a route that would take them on a mountain path through the wilderness, which would avoid the dangerous Beqaa Valley. Antoine’s enthusiasm is infectious, and they agree to his route. He says he’ll help them get out of Beirut, and he’ll also collect camping supplies for them.
In the morning, Karim laughs at the supplies Antoine has given them, which he thinks are better suited for scouts than refugees. Driving through East Beirut, Antoine says he hopes the route he had planned is still open, commenting that streets he once thought were safe are now nothing less than shooting ranges; even the shortest trip is full of danger and suspense.
They encounter two roadblocks. Militiamen let them pass after hearing the story Antoine concocts about the children being his orphaned niece and nephews he is driving to a cousin’s place in Juniyah. After crossing the Nahr el-Kelb river, Antoine drops the children off and exchanges heartfelt goodbyes. The children walk to an old Arabic bridge deep in the greenery. The scents and silence of the forest are an unfamiliar but welcome reprieve from the war-ravaged city. The hike tests their endurance, but they decide to push on to Jeita cave. When they arrive, however, the cave entrance is blocked with bars. As Maha heats Jad’s baby formula, Karim reads aloud about the cave from Antoine’s tourist guide. Maha is enthralled by the idea of stalactites and stalagmites taking thousands of years to form.
After napping under a pine tree, the three wake to the sound of a rocket in the city. They walk along a ravine until nightfall and pitch the tent. In the morning they awake with sore bodies, but the landscape is breathtakingly beautiful: trees, slopes, the shimmering sea. Karim prepares Jad’s bottle while Maha goes to the water to clean Jad’s dirty diapers. When Maha sees that Karim has also prepared breakfast for them, she says that Nada was right, he really is perfect. All day Karim wonders what Nada meant when she would have said this, and what else Maha knows about him. He thinks achingly of her body and their too-quick kisses.
That evening they watch the sun sink into the sea. Karim says such an awe-inspiring sight makes him want to pray more than any muezzin’s call to prayer. They discuss whether they are bad Muslims: Maha says she doesn’t pray five times a day, but she does pray often and fasts during Ramadan. Karim says he doesn’t think he’s a good Muslim: his mother is Christian and his father stopped going to mosque years ago. But he does believe in God and reads the Koran sometimes. He is surprised to have such a grown-up conversation with Maha, who he forgets is only twelve.
Analysis
Building on the theme of different perspectives, Marineau has Antoine explain how the notion of pre-war Lebanon as a paradise—an idea which Karim is tired of hearing about—is in itself mythic. Antoine refutes the image of Lebanon as the “Switzerland of the Middle East,” citing how tension born out of income inequality, political disagreements, and the rural/urban divide precipitated the Civil War.
Though Antoine is initially resistant to the idea of the children traveling to Chilfa alone, once he remembers the walking trip he took with Karim’s father in the 1960s, he is inspired. He offers to set the kids up with camping supplies to complete the wilderness leg of their journey. In the photos and journals Antoine shows them, Karim finds even more justification for participating in the journey: he wishes to retrace his father’s footsteps, and to view Lebanon from a vantage point that will let him see it in a unified whole.
After lying to militiamen to clear the roadblocks, Antoine drops the kids off at the entrance to the hiking trail. Having known nothing but war in the city, the peaceful forest presents a stark contrast to life in the city. The scents and sounds of nature will gradually help them forget about the conflicts occurring all over the country; however, this peace is nonetheless punctured by the occasional sound of a rocketing exploding somewhere in the distance. Moments like this remind them that the forest is not entirely free of peril.
As Maha and Karim hike through the awe-inspiring landscape, sharing responsibilities of carrying, feeding, and washing Jad, their former hostility begins to break down, replaced by an atmosphere of respect and admiration. When Maha says that her sister was right, and Karim really is perfect, he is reminded of his desire to learn more about what Nada told Maha—an instance that foreshadows the climactic scene in which Maha reveals the full extent of Nada’s opinion of Karim.
Watching the sun sink into the sea, Maha and Karim discuss, for the first time, their religion. While they don't think of themselves as devout or disciplined Muslims, they both believe in God. Karim is surprised that he is able to have such mature conversations with Maha, even though she is only twelve years old. The moment touches on the theme of adolescent development: though Maha’s body is far less developed than Nada’s was at the same age, Maha’s mind speaks of maturing that outpaces her physical development.
